


Shirokuma Culture

by rememberwhenyoutried



Category: Shirokuma Cafe | Polar Bear's Cafe, The Culture - Iain M. Banks
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 06:43:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18383078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rememberwhenyoutried/pseuds/rememberwhenyoutried
Summary: A brief crossover of Shirokuma Cafe and The Culture, for some reason. Archived from Tumblr.





	1. Me, I'm Counting

"I would like something from you,” said the fat little man, who a few moments earlier had called himself an “avatar”, a fact that Panda swiftly forgot. “It will cost you nothing and leave you just as you were. But I prefer to exchange gifts; is there something you would like?”

Panda looked at the little man.

“I should stress at this point, since it doesn’t seem to have sunk in, that I am the avatar of a ship that can skip over star systems as if they are flattened rocks laid across a stream. There is little that is beyond my capabilities; almost nothing, I’m sure, that would be familiar to one such as yourself.”

Panda looked at the little man. Panda’s head moved fractionally to the left.

“What,” the man said, “would you like most in the world? Right now? What is your heart’s desire?”

Panda looked at the little man. A thought struck him.

“Do you think I’m cute?” he said.

The man shrugged. “How can I put this? You are so cute that I travelled for three months just on the rumour of your existence. You are so cute that rumours  _exist_ about you in a meaningful galactic sense, which is frankly bizarre given that you live on an unContacted planet, and you weren’t even born when the  _Arbitrary_ left the system, inadvisably pooping diamonds all over the place. You are so cute that I am trying desperately to secure your permission to take what is effectively a four dimensional photograph of you to be stored in my archives for centuries, possibly millennia after your death, so that there will always be a record of a being so cute that physics itself seems to bend a little in its presence.”

Panda looked at the little man.

The little man sighed. “Yes, you are very cute.”

Panda smiled, and fell asleep.

Later, when he woke, the  _Me, I’m Counting_ left the system with a highly sophisticated and detailed image of Panda, and Panda was left with the memory of a slightly baffling encounter with a sweet little man, a lot of bamboo, and an umbrella with his face on it.


	2. Panda's Tragic and Mysterious Accident

Laflia, avatar of the GSV _It’s All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses Something They’d Prefer Not to Have Lost_ , watched the creature known as Panda swing his legs irritably against the edge of the bed, and sighed. Since it had no breathing apparatus to speak of, Laflia’s sighs were meant to convey subtle shades of meaning to its audience, which only worked, it reflected, when its audience wasn’t as insufferably self-centred as Panda. Still in simulation, it had told him they didn’t have any panda bodies in, that he would have to make do with a generic bear body modified to look like one, and Panda had taken to a sulk that had lasted through reventing and into his new body.

Laflia had insisted that only a Mind, or someone with scanning equipment, would be able to tell that his was not a Panda’s body on the inside, but it had not helped.

“I’ve lost my vital cuteness,” he had wailed, sitting in front of a mirror and rocking back and forth.

“Now that’s a sad panda,” Sasako said, approaching from behind and startling Laflia out of its reflections. “I think he’s right, you know: he’s just not as cute any more.”

“I told you,” Laflia huffed, “even the ship’s heavy duty main effector measures his cuteness to within a fraction of a percent of its original value, as measured by the _Me, I’m Counting_ , which graciously compared it against the scans it took last year, even if it wouldn’t let the ship see them itself.”

"No, there’s definitely something missing.”

“I’d love to find out what it is. He just sits there all day, swinging his legs like that, or rolling around on the floor.”

Sasako sat down next to Laflia and propped her chin on her hands, the better to properly observe Panda. “No, that’s pretty normal. Wait; is he spontaneously manifesting little flowers around his head?”

“Not even once.”

“Ah. That  _is_ a problem.”

Sasako watched the bear-creature for a few minutes. In that time, he stood up from his bed and appeared to start walking across the room, but he gave up less than half the way to the mirror and collapsed. After a moment, he rolled over on his back, and stayed there, apparently settling in.

A thought struck Sasako. “What about ‘Dream Panda’?”

"Dare I ask?”

“It’s his ideal. The way he described it, he’d like for his legs to be longer, he’d like an upside down triangle-shaped torso, and for his face to be shaped like an inverted triangle, too.”

“I’m having trouble picturing that.”

“Maybe you should ask the ship?”

Laflia submitted a request for its subroutine to be briefly reintegrated with the Mind running the GSV. Sasako thought the avatar looked shocked, and wondered if she’d imagined the entire thirty kilometre length of the ship shudder as it considered her suggestion.

“Sasako,” Laflia said, “I’m speaking as the ship’s Mind proper when I say this: what an  _incredibly_ buff panda.”


	3. On the Importance of Data Security

Panda stared at his bamboo salad. It just hadn’t been the same since his return from the GSV. The world—no, the galaxy!—was so much bigger now.

On board the GSV  _It’s All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses Something They’d Prefer Not to Have Lost_ , a ship carrying almost five hundred million people of varying shapes, size, and species, Panda had met a dizzying number of distinct individuals,  _every one of whom_ had agreed that he was perhaps the cutest thing in the explored galaxy.

But still it wasn’t enough! Panda had been told of other GSVs, larger still than the _Fun and Games_ ; Orbitals and Habitats and Rocks and whole other civilisations, the vast majority of which had never even _seen_ a Panda.

Worse, no-one here believed him. He tried to tell Penguin and Polar Bear but, during Polar Bear’s five minute monologue on words that rhyme with “GSV,” Sasako had taken him aside and warned him that if he continued to break his agreement with the ship’s Mind not to reveal what he had learned, then steps would be taken.

This was discouraging enough that Panda had managed to keep quiet for three whole days now.

But he was  _listless_. And he was more than a little insulted that no-one—not his friends, not his coworkers at the zoo, not his mother and sister—had realised he was depressed. He spent all day every day just lying around, sighing heavily, staring blankly at the ceiling, and had anyone noticed? Had anyone asked, hey, Panda, you don’t seem quite as cute as usual? Maybe only very slightly less cute, but still? Or perhaps just as cute but otherwise affected in a way that did not at all diminish his cuteness?

No. No, they hadn’t.

“Mama!” he called. “Mama, I can’t stand it any more! I have to tell you—”

“Mama’s at the store,” said a voice. Sasako walked into view. “Some pandas actually  _work_ around here.”

Panda rolled over. “How can I be expected to work?” he moaned.

Sasako fixed him with a glare. “You were about to tell your mother everything, weren’t you?”

"Only about the ship and the aliens.” Panda said. “Nothing important.” _  
_

Sasako sighed. “You’re going to have to come back to the ship. I’m sorry.”

Panda waved his arms in fear. In an attempt to prolong the moment, he glanded  _slow_ , and in this enhanced state was able to see the Displace bubble form around him.

His last thoughts on Earth were,  _No! Don’t suck me up!_ and then the bubble closed, and he was gone.

They were going to politely ask him to watch the instructional videos  _again_.


End file.
